Multiple sources say it's a done deal that World Cup 2022 will take place in November and December of 2022 in Qatar. A FIFA task force will meet in Doha next week and make that recommendation, and the FIFA Executive Committee is set to make the decision final at its meeting in Zurich next month.

In the least shocking news to hit the industry this week, Rosie O’Donnell is leaving The View after a much-hyped return less-than-a-hockey-season ago. Not to end-zone dance or anything–because this choice was so obviously doomed from the start–but Ms. O’Donnell not being able to revive a sinking franchise could be seen from a mile away (as was her mental meltdown). As mentioned in this space, sequels invariably fail (at least critically compared to the original…with a few exceptions) in the entertainment world. O’Donnell is a living, breathing, 50-something sequel. And in the end, her departure is a product of classic...

Ah, yes. The infamous â€ślatte salute.â€ť If you havenâ€™t heard about it yet, Obama walked off a helicopter insouciantly clutching an environmentally-deadly Styrofoam latte cup in his right hand. When the two Marines waiting at the base of steps offered him a smart salute, Obama, who seemed to avoid looking at them, vaguely pawed his forehead with the hand holding that cup and then walked on. Here, see it for yourself: People in the military and conservatives were outraged. Liberals have been outraged at the outrage. Here are a few of the comments Iâ€™ve culled from liberals on my â€śreal...

Brazilians bitter about their team's disastrous World Cup celebrated Argentina's defeat to Germany in the final Sunday by dancing and launching fireworks, relieved that their arch-rivals failed to triumph on their soil. In Brasilia and Sao Paulo, fireworks exploded after Mario Goetze scored in extra-time to give the Germans a last-gasp victory at Rio de Janeiro's Maracana Stadium. At a bar near the stadium, Brazilians chanted "Cry! Cry! Argentina!" in a nod to the song "Don't cry for me Argentina."

I've held off on writing about soccer for a decade -- or about the length of the average soccer game -- so as not to offend anyone. But enough is enough. Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay. (1) Individual achievement is not a big factor in soccer. In a real sport, players fumble passes, throw bricks and drop fly balls -- all in front of a crowd. When baseball players strike out, they're standing alone at the plate. But there's also individual glory in home runs, touchdowns and slam-dunks. In soccer,...

If you go on Google Maps and ask for driving directions from San Francisco to Salvador, Brazil, you get a discouraging response: “Sorry, we could not calculate directions from “San Francisco, CA” to “Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.” But that didn’t stop Ben Oude Kamphuis, a hardcore Dutch soccer fan and Hulk Hogan look-alike, from hopping into his orange 1955 Chevy truck, Old Nellie, and going on the road trip of a lifetime to the World Cup. “The whole experience has been mind-blowing,” Oude Kamphuis, 52, told me via Skype recently from a pit stop in Urcos, Peru. “It all started four...

Skipper Jimmy Spithill and Oracle Team USA won the 34th America's Cup today in one of the greatest comebacks in sports history. Spithill steered Oracle's space-age, 72-foot catamaran to its eighth straight victory, speeding past Dean Barker and Emirates Team New Zealand in the winner-take-all Race 19 on San Francisco Bay to keep the oldest trophy in international sports in the United States. All but defeated a week ago, the 34-year-old Australian and his international crew twice rallied from seven-point deficits to win 9-8 Wednesday.

A few thousand Muslim Brotherhood supporters rallied on Friday at the Cairo Stadium in a Global March to Jerusalem, marking the 46th anniversary of the occupation of east Jerusalem and its Judaization, according to a report in Ahram Online on Friday. … “The marches aim to highlight the issue of Jerusalem – by which we point out the racism and Judaization practices of the occupying state against Jerusalem and Palestine,” Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Ahmed Aref said on Thursday. … A video report by AFP quoted a protester who said, “Today we say to Israel that we are here and one...

Islamist militants belonging to the Hezbal Islam rebel group have killed two football fans and arrested 10 others after attacking a house where World Cup fans were watching a hotly-contested game between Argentina and Nigeria in the Huruwaa neighborhood north east of the capital Mogadishu late on Saturday. Residents say that heavily armed militants stormed a house where World Cup fans were secretly watching the football competition which was prohibited in Islamist controlled regions in Somalia. “Two young men who tried to jump over the wall were shot and killed while 10 others including my husband and my teenage son...

England's opening World Cup match against the USA is being targeted by a terror group linked to al-Qa'eda. An immediate review of security was ordered last night for the showpiece game in South Africa after an Algerian-based group posted an online threat to bring 'deaths' in an explosion on the day of the game. Thousands of British and American fans are expected to descend on the town of Rustenberg - 40 miles north of Johannesburg on June 12 - for the Group C game.

World Cup Stadium 'Cow Sacrifice' Plan Sparks Row Animal sacrifice is a vital part of life for many South Africans. A proposal to bless South Africa's World Cup stadiums by slaughtering a cow in each one has caused concern among animal rights activists. The Makhonya Royal Trust, which put forward the idea, described the cattle killing ritual as a "true African" way of blessing the 2010 tournament. Government minister Sicelo Shiceka has promised to lobby football's governing body, Fifa, in support of the plan. But animal rights groups have demanded to be consulted over the plans. The row comes as...

The Irish Justice Minister today demanded a rematch after a blatant handball by French striker Thierry Henry beat Ireland and put France through to the World Cup Finals. Dermot Ahern lashed out at governing body Fifa after the Republic of Ireland were cruelly beaten by the controversial extra-time goal. Dubbed 'Le Hand', Barcelona star Henry confessed to using his arm to control the ball before squaring for teammate William Gallas to finish. The Irish Justice Minister today demanded a rematch after a blatant handball by French striker Thierry Henry beat Ireland and put France through to the World Cup Finals....

A House committee held an important hearing Thursday morning on the issue of "libel tourism." That's the practice of bringing libel suits against American authors in other nations, particularly the United Kingdom, where First Amendment protections do not apply and where the burden of proof is placed on the defendant rather than on the plaintiff. Saudi Arabian businessman Khalid bin Mahfouz has brought several such lawsuits, winning a default judgment against American researcher Rachel Ehrenfeld for her book Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed and How to Stop It, and forcing a Cambridge University Press to destroy copies of the...

Folgers, Maxwell House, and Starbucks are America's best-selling ground coffees. But all three were iced by Eight O'Clock Colombian coffee in our taste tests. As for Starbucks, it didn't even place among the top regular coffees and trailed among decafs.Our tests of 19 coffees also show that some of the best cost the least. At about $6 per pound, Eight O'Clock costs less than half the price of Gloria Jean's, Peet's, and other more expensive brands. Like your joe without all the caffeine? Dunkin' Donuts and Millstone were the front runners among the decafs. But Folgers Gourmet Selection Lively Colombian...

Rag and bone cup dates to 300BC Last Updated: 9:40PM BST 27/05/2008 The grandson of a rag and bone man who acquired a small metal cup is in line for a windfall after discovering it is a pure gold vessel dating back to the third or fourth century BC. A rag and bone man gave his grandson the pure gold vessel, which is from the third or fourth century BC The piece could be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. The 5˝ in cup, believed to be from the Achaemenid empire, has two female faces looking in opposite directions, their...

Gold cup find led to graves discovery by Nick Evans AN important archaeological find by Broadstairs man Cliff Bradshaw prompted further excavations which uncovered centuries- old Anglo-Saxon graves. These later finds, thought to be the graves of women from the fifth and sixth centuries, were the subject of an inquest held last week by coroner Rebecca Cobb to decide if the finds should be declared treasure. She heard the excavations followed the discovery in 2001 by Cliff Bradshaw of what has since become known as the Ringlemere Cup, which was later declared a national treasure and is on show in...

Starbucks recalls China-made kids cups Thu Oct 11, 3:21 AM ET Coffee shop chain Starbucks is recalling 250,000 made-in-China plastic children's cups that can break easily and endanger children, the company and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced. The Seattle, Washington company said it has received seven reports of the cups breaking, and in two of the reports children began to choke on a broken piece. But it added that no injuries had been reported. The recall includes four styles of plastic children's 10-ounce (300-millileter) cups: the red ladybug, green turtle, pink bunny and yellow chick cups. "If...

New Delhi, May 2: The Indian cricket fan would want to forget the just-concluded World Cup as a nightmare but the double whammy of the national team’s shocking exit and atrocious TV coverage would leave bitter memories for a long, long time. Former Australian cricket captain Steve Waugh, who was in India during the World Cup, gave vent to his disgust by stating that the telecast in India was "unwatchable". "It is annoying, ridiculous and an insult to the game to see an advertisement being squeezed in just because the bowler has not reached the top of his run-up," the...

WELCOME TO THE DAYTONA 500 ******** DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY HERE'S THE FRONT ROW! FEBRUARY 18, 2007 ~ 3:15PM ET ON FOX PLEASE REMEMBER OUR TROOPS IN HARMS WAY. PRAY FOR THEIR SAFETY & GIVE STRENGTH TO THE COMBAT MEDICS WHO TREAT THEM. EXTRA PRAYERS ARE ALWAYS NEEDED FOR THOSE AT WALTER REED, BETHESDA, BAMC AND THE NEW INTREPID PHYSICAL REHABILITATION CENTER WHICH IS PART OF BAMC.

German bomb plot intended for World Cup: paper Fri Sep 1, 2006 3:14pm ET BERLIN (Reuters) - Two failed attempts to bomb trains in western Germany in July had originally been planned for the football World Cup, a newspaper reported on Friday. The Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung cited security sources as saying interrogation of the suspects had established that the would-be bombers had abandoned the original plan as they had considered the implications of such an attack. One of the bombs was found in July on a train in Dortmund, which hosted some of June and July's World Cup matches. The...

Last week the world witnessed the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, which began with air raids by F-16 jets and heavy artillery, knocking off Palestine’s bridges, power stations, airport, water reservoirs and even playgrounds. The air raids paved the way for the Israeli Army to occupy the Gaza Strip. All this happened while the world is busy watching the World Cup. What seems unusual is the silence of the international community even as Palestinian blood is being spilled almost every moment of the day. The world is behaving as though the life of an abducted Israeli soldier is more...

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - The chief of Cambodia's Buddhist monks is cutting his charges some slack for the duration of soccer's World Cup: they may watch the matches on television, but no cheering or getting excited. And absolutely no betting. The country's holy men - more than 90 percent of Cambodia's 13 million people are Buddhist - normally aren't supposed to watch television, movies or artistic displays. According to Buddhism's strictest tenets, they should abstain from pleasurable activity. Gambling is a major no-no. But monks get as excited as anyone else at the chance to watch soccer's top stars,...

Long unknown at home and ridiculed abroad, the United States isn't being written off in the soccer world anymore. But the Americans will need to pull together as team to get past their tough World Cup group. A motorcade of police cars with flashing blue lights and a massive, unmarked FIFA bus has announced the arrival and often rapid departure of the US soccer team in Hamburg over the past week. But when the American players are on their own, it's a different story. On Friday, star midfielder DaMarcus Beasley sat, blissfully anonymous, at a sidewalk café outside the Americans'...

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German police have arrested a man on suspicion of murdering a woman with a Bockwurst sausage. Prosecutors and police said the 50-year-old was arrested after the discovery of a woman's body in an apartment in Zwickau, eastern Germany. They said she had choked on a Bockwurst, which is a popular large German sausage. The prosecutors said the man had given a patchy account of events, acknowledging that he may have "administered" a Bockwurst to the woman. They are now working to establish exactly what happened in the run up to her death.

Category 5 thriller on tap Hurricanes earn Cup berth against Oilers in homecoming of sorts John MacKinnon, The Edmonton Journal Published: Friday, June 02, 2006 The Edmonton Oilers have a Stanley Cup final date, at last, beginning Monday night in NASCAR country. And the speedy, skilled Carolina Hurricanes will be facing the Oilers in the final thanks hugely to Mike Commodore and Ray Whitney of Fort Saskatchewan and ex-Oilers captain Doug Weight, making amends for a costly penalty in Game 6 by scoring a key goal in Game 7, a dramatic, see-saw victory over the Buffalo Sabres. Not to mention...

Hurricanes win Game 7, take series RALEIGH — Wherever the Carolina Hurricanes are headed, Rod Brind’Amour will lead them there. Thursday, he brought them to the brink of the Stanley Cup for the second time in five years. With a 4-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals, the Canes will host the Edmonton Oilers on Monday, four wins away from the Stanley Cup. Brind’Amour’s power-play goal with 8:38 to play put the Canes into the lead for good, completing yet another third-period comeback for a team that made a habit of them to...

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness. Kennedy, D-R.I., addressed the issue after a spate of news reports. His initial statement said: "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident."'Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis.Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes...

Conference Semifinal Playoff Schedule NEW YORK - The Conference Semifinal round of the 2006 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs opens Friday, May 5, when the Ottawa Senators host the Buffalo Sabres in the Eastern Conference and the Anaheim Mighty Ducks host the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference. The Eastern Conference series between the Carolina Hurricanes and New Jersey Devils and the Western Conference match-up between the San Jose Sharks and Edmonton Oilers start on Saturday, May 6 and Sunday, May 7, respectively. National network television coverage of the Conference Semifinals is provided in the United States by NBC and OLN...

World Cup fans warned of race attacks By Bojan Pancevski in Berlin (Filed: 30/04/2006) Black visitors to the World Cup in Germany are being warned to stay clear of parts of the country where they could be at risk of racist attacks. A "no-go" map, with a focus on the capital Berlin, will be posted on a website and printed in brochures for distribution to thousands of visitors of African and Asian origin. The document was drawn up by the Africa Council, an umbrella organisation of African community groups and activists in Germany, following concern over an incident on Easter...

BERLIN -- Three former Iran players threatened to protest at the World Cup if their country's hardline president attends. They also urged host Germany to halt talks with the Tehran government over tournament security. The players, members of dissident group the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said Wednesday they would protest any attempt to "politicize" the World Cup with a visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The German government has resisted calls to bar Ahmadinejad from the June 9-July 9 tournament for threatening Israel and denying the Holocaust happened. He has not indicated whether he plans to attend and Iranian...

Paul Moroney, Matamata's managing owner of leading New Zealand Melbourne Cup hope Xcellent, has a message to his supporters: "Don't worry, he'll do us proud." A four-time winner at racing's elite Gr I level, Xcellent rates as our best chance of success in tomorrow's $A5 million ($NZ5.3 million) race at Flemington. Xcellent is paying $21 at Melbourne bookies, but has all the attributes of a Melbourne Cup winner – blistering speed at the finish and the ability to relax early in his races. Moroney, whose brother Michael trains Xcellent in partnership with Andrew Scott at Matamata, says he is confident...

Difficult enough to believe that BNP Paribas, Saddam’s favourite bank, would be the major sponsor of world tennis, including the French Open at Roland Garros in Paris. BNP, which backed a regime that tortured athletes, is now the proud partner of the International Tennis Federation (ITF). Saddam’s psychopathic son, Uday, in charge of Olympic sporting in Iraq, had an obsession with tennis. But that BNP Paribas would sponsor the prestigious Davis Cup match in South Carolina is something that must cause the souls of all the athletes that died under Saddam & Son to turn in their graves. To sponsor...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- International Speedway Corp. has paid $100 million to buy land in Staten Island to build a New York City track. The company, which owns or operates 11 of NASCAR's major tracks, hopes to build a $600 million facility on dormant industrial land. Officials said Wednesday it could represent the largest construction project the motorsports giant has undertaken, nearly triple the amount it spent to build tracks in Kansas City, Kan., and the Chicago area. Lesa France Kennedy, president of the family-controlled ISC, said the company has to complete a feasibility study before deciding whether to...

MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAYNBC Sunday October 24, 2004 at 12:30pm ET5 RACES TO GO!! At slightly more than half a mile, Martinsville Speedway is the shortest track on the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Circuit, but it's one of the biggest when it comes to action. It has 800-foot straights, turns banked at only 12 degrees and has been called "two drag strips with a turnaround on each end." The demanding layout consistently produces some of the wildest fender scrubbing, push and shove racing on the tour.

Euro 2004 - Live from Euro 2004 Mon 05 Jul, 12:10 AM PARIS (AFP) - Greeks stun Portugal to claim first title Greece tore up the Euro 2004 script in the most spectacular fashion imaginable on Sunday with a 1-0 win over Portugal to claim the first major trophy in the history of one of Europe's football minnows. Angelos Charisteas, the striker whose header had sunk France in the quarter-final, repeated the trick with a 57th-minute winner that left the host nation in a state of stunned disbelief. "I feel very emotional," said the 24-year-old Werder Bremen marksman. "I am...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The opening event of the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series season, the Daytona 500, is the 46th annual "Great American Race" at Daytona International Speedway. And while Nextel is opening at least a 10-year relationship as the series sponsor, the event has already established an extensive numerological history. ---the rest of this article, titled "By the Numbers: Daytona 500" continues below. This thread, as are all the NASCAR Race Threads, is dedicated to our Armed Forces members, past and present, and their families worldwide.We ask that you take a moment and remember all those who paid the...

BOSTON -- As millions of Catholics prepare for the traditional midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, the Boston Archdiocese is making an unusual plea to parishioners. NewsCenter 5's Jorge Quiroga reported that church leaders are asking anyone with cold or flu symptoms to take certain precautions and avoid some rituals. The announcement comes days after two elderly men on Cape Cod died of flu complications. But public health officials warn against overreactions saying the cases are not unusual considering the ages of the victims, 89 and 90. Parishioners attending Christmas Mass are urged not to shake hands as a sign of...

The US play rugby? Pull the other one, writes Gordon Waters. It is about 60 days till the opening fixture of the Rugby World Cup between Australia and Argentina. The defending champions will open their campaign with hundreds of thousands of fans pouring in from all over the world. Kylie Minogue and Thirty Odd Foot of Grunt will do a duo on Advance Australia Fair at the opening ceremony. Then a lot of rucks, mauls, line-outs and tries. Sounds perfect. Then I discover that the Americans are participating. Can this be true? Australia has this love-hate relationship with the US...

FAN'S PENALTY BOOB COSTS RIVALS CUP WIN 11:00 - 16 April 2003When a thrilling Somerset soccer cup final went to a penalty shoot-out, it was all over in a flash.As a Norton Hill Rangers' player prepared to net the ball, a shapely female Wookey FC fan standing behind the goal lifted her shirt and gave him an eye-full. He was clearly diverted from his original purpose because the ball went flying into the car park. The score, which had been 0-0 after 90 minutes, ended with Wookey winning 3-2 on penalties, and brought the club the Morland Challenge Cup for...

Alinghi Wins the America's Cup02.March 2003 By Peter Rusch Alinghi [SUI-64] won Race Five of the XXXIst America’s Cup Match in Auckland on Sunday and, for the first time in its 152-year history, the America’s Cup is going back to Europe. Ernesto Bertarelli’s Swiss Alinghi Team swept away Team New Zealand [NZL-82] in five consecutive races, becoming the first Challenger to win the America’s Cup on its initial attempt. With his 14th America’s Cup win, Alinghi skipper Russell Coutts broke Dennis Conner’s record of 13 America’s Cup race victories, adding the five wins of 2003, to the nine he earned...

[Note: The Americas's Cup is being carried in the U.S. by ESPN--check your local listings].Race Five Postponed01. March 2003Russell Coutts didn’t get his birthday present on Saturday. The Alinghi [SUI-64] skipper had the opportunity to celebrate his 41st birthday by holding the America’s Cup aloft for his Swiss Alinghi Team with a victory in Race Five. Alinghi Swiss Challenge. But the weather didn’t cooperate, and very light winds on the Hauraki Gulf forced Principal Race Officer Harold Bennett to postpone racing for the day at 15:15. It was the 26th of 72 race days in this America’s Cup season to...

HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Tony Stewart dodged disaster on two restarts with less than 40 laps remaining and clinched his first Winston Cup championship by finishing 18th Sunday in the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Tony Stewart was all smiles before the green flag on Sunday. Credit: Autostock Neither Stewart nor Mark Martin, who came into the race 89 points behind in second, managed to lead a lap in the 267-lap event on the flat, 1.5-mile oval. But Martin was only able to finish fourth, gaining less than 40 points. He was falling backwards at the finish, while Stewart,...